Most Aboriginal men and women intermarry with non-indigenous Australians, new research has shown.

Analysis of the 2006 census reveals that 52% of Aboriginal men and 55% of Aboriginal women were married to non-Aboriginal Australians.

In Australia's larger east coast cities, the intermarriage rate was well above 70%; in Sydney, as many as nine out of 10 university-educated Aborigines had a non-indigenous partner.

Until the 1970s, hostility to such unions prompted the government to remove their children, creating what became known as the "stolen generation." Researchers from Melbourne's Monash University say the growth in intermarriage is evidence that racism is waning in Australia.

Dr Bob Birrell, who led the research said: "In the US, the social divide between black and white is deep, and intermarriage rates with African Americans is 8%. We don't see any parallel here. Prejudice to intermarriage has pretty much evaporated."

He said a growing number of people identified themselves as Aboriginal – up from 250,738 in 1982 to 455,028 in 2006 – which was further evidence of declining prejudice.

But Birrell said demographics, not politics, were the main factor in the growth of cross-cultural relationships. Intermarriage was "especially high when the indigenous move into communities where they are the minority", he said.

In the Northern Territory – where Aborigines in are the majority – far fewer choose partners from a non-indigenous background. In the capital city of Darwin, 33% of men and 45% of women marry non-Aboriginal partners, while, in the outback, just 2% of men and 5% of women take a non-Aboriginal partner.

Yet despite the growth in mixed marriages in Australia's urban centres, racist notions dating back to the 19th century persist and children of mixed parentage are still described as "half-caste" or "quarter-caste".

Linda Burney, the first indigenous person elected to the New South Wales parliament, said that, despite the figures, indigenous Australia was unlikely to disappear altogether.

"My mother was white, my father Aboriginal but I am Aboriginal. I have one child who is very fair, blue eyed and blonde and the other has a very similar dark complexion to me. Their father was an Aborigine with an English father and an Aboriginal mother," she said.

"It's not the way you look, it's not about the colour of your skin, it's about being accepted and understood as Aboriginal within the community."

Burney said that being "half-caste" was a way of survival well into the 1950s when, in NSW, Aborigines were required to wear a piece of leather around their necks, dubbed "dog tags", detailing the quantity of Aboriginal blood in their veins.

"If you weren't a full blood, you were exempted from the welfare act which meant you had freedom of movement, your kids could go to school and you could work," said Burney.

Despite the growing social mobility of some indigenous Australians, most Aborigines live in entrenched poverty, and their health is among the worst in the world.